Tag: china

Applying for a visa is potentially the most frustrating part of the travel experience. Being a Filipino citizen, I need a visa to travel to most countries (notable exceptions are ASEAN member states Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam). My trip to Sanya last month was my first time to apply for a Chinese visa. There are different visa categories but this entry focuses on the two most common visas: the tourist visa and the business visa.

L Visa is issued to a person who comes to China for sightseeing, visiting relatives, or private matters. Documents to be included with application:

1. Applicant’s passport with blank pages and at least 6 months validity left before expiration.

2. A completed application form affixed with one passport-size or 2×2 colored photo, with white background, full-face front view, and no hat. Photo must be glued on the application form. Stapled pictures will not be accepted. Scanned photos will also not be accepted. U.S. passport holders must submit two application forms with two photos.

3. Invitation letter with a copy of the inviter’s valid Chinese residence visa and passport information page of inviter’s or Chinese national identity card. (applicable to those who are visiting family in China)

4. Previously used China visa in old or new passport (Only visa stickers will be accepted. Those with stamped visas must submit additional documents for first-time China visa applicants. Please refer to the list below.)

5. For first time applicants to China (Philippine passport holders, 18 years old and above), they are required to provide the following:

a) Original NBI clearance valid for travel abroad

b) Original bank certificate with receipt or original passbook, updated within the month that you are applying or….

– If a company will sponsor the trip, provide the company’s bank certificate, sponsorship letter from the company and the company’s business registration.

– If an individual will sponsor the trip, provide his bank certificate, sponsorship and invitation letter, copy of sponsor’s valid residence visa and passport information page or Chinese national ID.

c) For employed persons, also provide an employment certificate; company ID, SSS ID and contributions, TIN ID, and latest ITR

d) For students, provide school ID

e) For businessmen, provide business registration of company, TIN ID and latest ITR

f) Personal appearance is required for those who are 16-21 years old.

6. The emergency contact information page in the applicant’s passport should be filled out and photocopied.

Our flight from Sanya to Hong Kong was at 2pm, which left enough time for us to do a bit of sightseeing. As it turned out, one of my mother’s friends is the auditing head for the Hilton Sanya Resort & Spa and he was nice enough to offer us brunch and a tour of the hotel. Tito Jun was a bit late picking us up (he’d gotten lost as he’d never been to our part of Sanya before) so we decided to eat at least some breakfast before leaving (I love the mini pork buns! :D). Incidentally, I found out that I’m capable of walking really fast while keeping a mini pork bun trapped between my chopsticks 😛

Tito Jun picked us up in one of the hotel’s shuttle vans and gave a running commentary on the history of Hainan and the rapid expansion of Sanya’s tourism industry for the entire 30-minute ride. He was a veritable treasure trove of information, as he’d been in Sanya for 4 out of the 21 years he’d been working in China (he was part of the hotel’s opening team).

The pace of the tourism development in Sanya is just incredible. The Hilton is located in Yalong Bay and is just one of the five 5-star properties already operating there: the Hilton, the Pullman, the Sheraton, the Marriott, and the Ritz-Carlton. The St. Regis is set to open this November 2011. Each hotel has around 450-500 rooms (the Hilton has 492), catering mostly to tourists from mainland China. All of this development is just the tip of the iceberg.

I asked Tito Jun if he really thought that all the construction could be supported by incoming tourists and he answered with a resounding yes. As he said, we’re talking about more than a billion Chinese. Even if they captured only the top 10% of the population with money to spend, they’re looking at 100 million tourists a year. At present, they’re having trouble retaining staff because the hotels are pirating experienced staff from each other. Tito Jun did worry though that with the glut of hotels in Sanya, they’d eventually be forced to lower their rates to compete. However, that situation is several years away.

After brunch, Tito Jun took us on a tour of the Hilton’s different rooms. My mom specifically told me to take photos of the rooms and to show her as soon as I got home. LOL. The first stop was the Presidential Suite, a suite the size of four standard rooms (about 200 sq. m) that comes with a personal butler on call 24 hours. During the peak seasons (Christmas, Chinese New Year), the suite can go for RMB 80,000 per night (~PhP 536,000). Yes, we took a lot of pictures because it’s highly unlikely that we’d ever enter a suite like it again 😛 Continue reading “Sanya, Hainan, China Day 5 – the Hilton Sanya and exploring HKIA”

Sanya Bay's beach. Basically like Manila Bay, down to the sewer pipe leading to the water

Day 4 saw the students presenting their research to the panel. OH NOES!!! Gaaah. For the record, I hate public speaking (which really makes me wonder what the heck I’m doing in tourism). I find that I’m a much better writer than I am a speaker. Was fortunate enough to have the errors in my presentation corrected by Dr. Siringan prior to the actual event. Phew! Nothing I could do about the poster though. Since my thesis isn’t finished yet, I just presented the preliminary results. The interesting thing that came out of the data is that my actual results are contradictory to my expected results. While this makes a much more interesting story, this means that I have to do much more reading in order to find an explanation 😐 No photos of me presenting because it was dark up front and there were no nice shots to be had.

Day 3 saw us doing field work in Sanya Bay. We split up into three groups: Group 1 on the boat to collect water samples from various parts of the bay, Group 2 to dive and collect the sediment traps set in front of the marine station, and Group 3 to snorkel and get a general picture of the area. We ended up in Group 3 because Zoan and I wanted to use the snorkeling gear we brought all the way from Manila. Continue reading “Sanya, Hainan, China Day 3 (June 10)”

Day 2 saw the formal opening of the workshop. We got talks from Dr. Thamasak Yeemin (Thailand), Dr. Fernando Siringan (Philippines), Dr. Gi Hoon Hong (Korea), Dr. Hui Huang (China), and Dr. Gangjian Wei (China). It was both thrilling and intimidating to be in the same room as these experts. Needless to say, my hand ached after taking several pages of notes throughout the day. That was the only time I envied Zoan with her iPad. Continue reading “Sanya, Hainan, China Day 2 (June 9)”

My first time in China! Yahoo! Well technically, I’m here for school, not fun, as I’m attending the 2nd IOC/WESTPAC Training Course: Water Quality and Impact on Coral Reefs here in the Tropical Marine Biology Research Station of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Sanya, Hainan. One of my professors in MSI is part of the organizing committee and he encouraged me to apply to attend the conference. I was lucky enough to get accepted and have the organizers pay for my airfare, board, and lodgings for the conference. In exchange, I’ll have to prepare a poster and give a 5-10 minute presentation on my master’s thesis that will be scrutinized by coral reef experts from all over Asia (China, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, and Vietnam). Gulp.